Daniel Handler carries grief and ghosts to Berkeley Rep stage

Daniel Handler has a new play opening, "Imaginary Comforts or The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit"

Daniel Handler has a new play opening, "Imaginary Comforts or The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit"

Photo: Meredith Heuer

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Above: “Imaginary Comforts of the Story of the Ghoset of the Dead Rabbit,” is the theme of Daniel Handler’s new play opening at Berkeley Rep. Lower right: Daniel Handler rose to fame as kids’ books author Lemony Snicket. less

Above: “Imaginary Comforts of the Story of the Ghoset of the Dead Rabbit,” is the theme of Daniel Handler’s new play opening at Berkeley Rep. Lower right: Daniel Handler rose to fame as kids’ books ... more

Photo: Nora Merecicky

Daniel Handler carries grief and ghosts to Berkeley Rep stage

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After a dizzying last few months that has included a new novel (“All the Dirty Parts”) and television show (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), San Francisco writer Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) moves to the stage with his “first bona fide” play, “Imaginary Comforts or The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit,” opening Oct. 5 at Berkeley Rep.

The dark comedy follows several characters crumbling under various crises of grief and alcoholism after the death of an addiction counselor named Dr. Gold. Meanwhile, a rabbi struggles to find the right words for the forthcoming eulogy while unraveling a perplexing tale of a dead rabbit. Handler spoke over the phone during rehearsals in Berkeley about his new project.

Q: This is your first original play. How does playwriting compare to the rest of your work?

A: Well, I sort of wrote the play accidentally. As I wrote it I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, and then I figured out it was a play, which was a very difficult thing to break to my wife. My wife likes very, very little theater. So I had to kind of sit her down and tell her that I had written a play the way I might tell her I had had an affair. But she’s adjusted.

Q: What form was it taking when you first starting writing it?

A: Pretty much just long scenes of dialogue. I wrote it right after my father past away, and I was alone for a while and obviously grieving. I would just write a tiny little bit everyday just to kind of keep myself sane.

Q: What’s the inspiration behind the story itself?

A: After my father died, our rabbi came over to make arrangements for the funeral and to talk to us about grief and things like that. She did a marvelous job. But two things happened after she left. One, I began to think, what if she’d done a horrible job? And the other was that, I looked at my calendar, and where I had written ‘rabbi’ because she was coming, I had actually written ‘rabbit.’ So I started think about how close those words were, and how our family’s emotional state would be so vastly different if she’d just done a terrible job about it. And that happened to be really funny to me.

Q: What is this play about to you?

A: To me it’s about stories, and about the stories we tell ourselves that help us get through the day. And the way we hear stories and the way other people hear our stories, and about the misinterpretations and misunderstandings that happen when anyone is carrying around their own narrative.

Q: In that sense, do you see this as an optimistic or pessimistic play?

A: I think it’s very optimistic. It offers the possibility for happiness and redemption for people who might not otherwise find it, and they find it through stories.

Q: Do you believe in ghosts? Or are they an imaginary comfort?

A: [laughs] I have lost people, and I feel like those people haunt me. I feel that I can be in conversation with them sometimes, and that that can be comforting. But I’ve never seen like a gossamer figure, rattling chains in an attic or anything like that.

Q: What are the imaginary comforts in your life?

A: I would say it’s all my time with literature. It’s listening to people telling their own stories and then it’s also reading the stories that people have written down. I had a two-hour commute on BART today, but I got to eavesdrop on two women talking about their husbands, and then I also read most of a very strange novel called “Such Small Hands” (by Andrés Barba). Those are great ways to sustain yourself particularly when BART is really crowded and kind of an olfactory nightmare.

Brandon Yu is a Bay Area freelance writer.

Imaginary Comforts or the The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit: Written by Daniel Handler. Directed by Tony Taccone. Opens Thursday, Oct. 5. Through Sunday, Nov. 19. $30-$97. Berkeley Rep Theatre, 2025 Addison St, Berkeley. (510) 647-2900 www.berkeleyrep.org